-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy- and Grammy-winning,
Oscar-nominated actress, musician, and producer
you know from movies such as "Chicago,"
"Bringing Down the House," and "Girls Trip."
She stars in "The Equalizer," which airs Sunday nights on CBS.
Let's take a look.
-Now!
-I heard you the first time.
You saying it louder
is not gonna make me any more afraid of you.
-Watch this.
[ Both grunting ]
[ Dramatic music plays ]
♪♪
-Please welcome back to the show
our friend Queen Latifah!
[ Up-tempo music plays ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-[ Speaking indistinctly ]
[ Laughs ]
-Hello! [ Cheers and applause ]
-Whoo! -Hello!
-Oh, my gosh, I was just coming from this board meeting
at Twitter. -Oh, no!
-I was just like, I just want to talk to y'all.
-You're on the board. You're on the board, yeah.
-i just wanted to talk to them about maybe just talking
about selling me the company. -Well!
-They just kind of laughed a little.
-That is the future, though.
-Said they just had a guy in there.
-Oh, so, you had the same approach as Fred.
You just wanted to talk to them? -I figured
they had all the money. You know?
So... -You guys think alike.
-They said they already had a guy they were considering.
-I'm sorry, that must have been hard to hear.
I'm very, very sorry. But good news.
I have some good news, though.
Congratulations on "The Equalizer."
This was the most-watched network season premiere.
[ Cheers and applause ] 7 million people.
Not only -- This, to me, must be so exciting.
Not only does America love it but your family specifically
is a big fan. -Yes, more importantly
than the entire world is my grandmother...
-Okay. -...who is, like, right there
in a recliner, watching it.
And she's just, "I just love that show."
-How old is your grandmother now?
-My grandmother is 94. -94.
[ Cheers and applause ] -94.
And she's like, "I just love that action."
-She's okay with all those bad guys
pulling guns on her granddaughter?
-She's okay with her granddaughter
whupping on them bad guys. -Yeah!
You do a lot of whupping in this show.
-I do. -Now, your father was an ex-cop.
-Mm-hmm. -And how does he --
Was this something where -- Do you find inspiration from him
when you play these sort of badass characters?
-I do, I do, 'cause he was, you know, "Get 'em, Dana!"
He been saying that since I was little.
"Stick 'em, Dana, stick 'em." -[ Laughs ]
-"Daddy, who?" [ Laughter ]
No, my father taught me so much stuff
before I was even, like, you know, 7.
And I'm like, "Dad, you know,
I can't use any of this in school."
[ Laughter ]
You know, he's like, "You can do this thing here,
and then you can break their wrist --
you know, break the thumb. You can pull like this,
and then you pull the whole socket out."
And I'm like, "Daddy,
I can't use any of these moves in school,
'cause I would be expelled. -Thumb breaking,
you definitely got to wait till at least high school.
-Like, "Come on," you know? This is, like, major stuff."
But, no, no, no, he's -- he's a big inspiration.
You know, he was S.W.A.T. and tactical,
and a lot of my family members are.
And so they get excited about it.
But it's cute because a lot of the guys
actually love the family aspect of it.
-Of the show. That's wonderful. That's a nice element.
-They like the relationship with the daughter and the son.
And then, like, but all the women are like,
"You kicking butt! And I love it!
And you are bad!" You know?
And I love it. And they just get mad at me.
My Aunt Angel, she gets mad if football runs over.
-Oh, that they have to delay the start of her "Equalizer"?
-She's always sending me some sort of text.
She's like, "Don't make me --"
Now, this is a very church-going woman.
You know, like, director of the choir,
the whole nine. She's like,
"Don't make me come up there and have to talk to Oprah.
And who is Adele anyway?"
[ Laughter ]
"L-O-L." -She knows what she wants.
-And then, the next week, she's like,
"You don't make me have to come up there.
And what is a football anyway?"
So, every week, it's, like, she just has me laughing.
-I want to know where it is she wants to come up to.
-To New York. -To New York. I see.
-They're all, like, in Maryland and Virginia.
So, like, "Don't make me come." -Whoo!
-Maryland and Virginia, hey. -There you go.
-So, they're like, you know -- They watch it together
sometimes, which is really nice.
-I will say, growing up, as a kid who was around
during the sort of '90s rap boom,
it is always fascinating to me that people like you,
people like Ice-T, people like LL Cool J
are all leads of sort of network television shows,
playing police officers, no less.
[ Laughter ]
Is this something that surprises you,
or does it make sense?
-We understand both sides of the coin.
[ Cheers and applause ]
We can speak from a place of [Chuckles]
It does not surprise me at all.
I mean, we were -- you know,
this was, like, a burgeoning music form.
And so we were all, like, hustlers out there going for it.
And -- And I -- And we all toured together.
So we would -- There would be like 10 acts, at least,
on these tours. And so we were all friends.
And so, when Will got "Fresh Prince,"
it was like, "Oh.
Oh, if Will can do a show, we can do a show."
And then, with the movies, and then there was Cube,
and, of course, L is, like, "Well, if Loc can do a show,
I'm getting a show."
And then Ice-T is the boss of all of us,
so he's like, "I pretty much will do whatever I want to do,
when I want to do it."
But then -- Who else is out there?
So everybody kind of looked at each other.
Oh, Cube -- So, Cube starts doing movies, and great ones.
And so we're like, "Well, if Cube can do movies,
then we can do movies, too."
So I think we all kind of, like, inspired each other
to go for it.
Like, to go bigger than just the music.
-I mean, a lot of it -- Look, it's all performance,
and it's all -- you know, it requires
a skill and an attention to detail
and a craft. And I think you see
it makes sense when you see that a whole generation of people
who were doing that in the '90s are doing this other thing now.
It does make sense you would all be good at both.
-Which is very, very cool. I think it's cool.
-Do you remember your first lyrics
that you wrote for yourself?
-I can't remember these lyrics,
but somebody just sent me my demo, and I was like 16.
[ Laughter ] -Have you listened to it?
-Yeah. It sounds crazy. [ Laughter ]
I'm glad that someone was -- Thank you, Dante Ross for...
Thank you, Fab Five Freddy, for giving to it Dante Ross,
who gave it to Monica Lynch,
who gave it to Tommy Boy Records,
who signed me off of this one demo
that my boy spent the rent money on.
[ Laughter ]
-When you listen to it, does it --
Do you think, "Alright, they made the right call"?
Or do you feel like -- Does it make you feel cringey,
listening to your early stuff?
-It feels like it was the '80s. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ] -I mean, like, I could tell
by the cadence and the things that I was talking about.
But I don't think they had heard anything like that,
because it has, like, a reggae hook.
I'm singing on the record, as well as rapping.
So I don't think anybody was really doing that at the time.
And I just sounded different from everybody out there.
So that's what I think got me in the door.
-I think there's a great deal, obviously, that's about talent,
but another big thing is choosing a name, Queen Latifah.
Now I can't imagine choosing anything else.
But you had to have had some Plan B's, Plan C's in there.
-Pbht. Well...
[ Laughter ]
There's a lot of jokes in that, Seth.
[ Laughter ]
I'mma leave it alone. Gonna leave it right on alone.
Um... [ Laughs ]
Uh, none of them worked.
I mean, like my original --
Like, my original rap name was La Wordski.
-La Wordski. -You know, which was like
"the word" or "la word," and the "ski" part.
-It's interesting you say "ski," 'cause LL Cool J was here,
and he said it was -- he had Coolski or something.
I think "ski" was originally part of his name, as well.
He said that the issue with "ski,"
maybe in the '80s, had a cocaine connotation.
[ Laughter ]
Oh, this is the first you're hearing?
-What?! [ Laughter ]
It's almost like when I went to the Twitter meeting.
-Yeah, oh, my God! Finding this out!
Two things on the same day. -Oh, my gosh.
No, yeah, you didn't -- I mean, it was everybody --
everybody was something-ski.
And you know, you just kinda... -I think it's good.
-We were trendy at the time, but we had sense enough
to maybe not go with that as our main names,
once we got signed.
-"Queen Latifah" certainly has aged a lot nicer
than I think that would. -Yes, I had no idea
that people were gonna say that whole thing.
-Yeah. -You know what I mean?
I was just -- My first record, literally, it's a record --
vinyl -- that came out.
It just says "Latifah."
Because I had singles first.
I didn't even have an album deal.
So, it came out, and it said "Latifah."
And I worked at the record store,
and I wanted to sell them my own record.
[ Laughter ]
People would come in and ask for that "Latifah."
"Can I get that Latifah record?"
I'm like, "Yeah. You want me to sign it?"
You know what I mean? -Did they believe it was you?
I think, if you bought an album, and the person
at the record store said it was them,
most people wouldn't believe them.
-They didn't believe me at first,
but then the manager would come up, "Yeah, it's her.
It's really her. Yeah, she's the..."
And then, when it came time to sign my long-form album deal,
I was like, "Yeah, Queen. Queen, Queen.
Queen Latifah." You know? "Queen."
[ Cheers and applause ] -Sometimes, you know --
Sometimes you gotta call your shot ahead of time.
Sometimes you got to let them know who they are,
and then they'll find out that you were right.
-I know. That there would be this Queen from New Jersey.
-Well -- -My mother laughed at first.
-When you told her you decided to go with Queen Latifah?
-She was like, "Queen?" [ Laughter ]
-[ Laughs ]
I guess, you know, hearing
your 17-year-old daughter say that is kind of funny.
-Then all these years later, you're like,
"Now, 'The Equalizer,' that I understand," yeah,
-Yes. -From Queen to "Equalizer,"
and every step of the way, it's just been a joy to watch.
Thanks for being here.
I'm always so happy to spend time with you.
-Seth, I'm always so happy to come back.
I love this show. -Queen Latifah, everybody.
"The Equalizer," Sunday nights on CBS.
We'll be right back with Sarah Sherman.